The ruling parties won their local elections comfortably over the weekend, with each fortifying their respective strongholds in the Santa Fe and Formosa provinces. These victories included Unidos para Cambiar Santa Fe Governor Maximiliano Pullaro’s triumph in the former and Peronist Gildo Insfrán’s in the latter.

President Javier Milei’s La Libertad Avanza (LLA) came in second in the city councilor elections in Rosario but struggled in most other districts of Santa Fe province while finishing a distant third in Formosa.

Formosa

In Formosa, the Peronist Partido Justicialista, led by Governor Insfrán, won with 67.2% of the vote in the legislative election, retaining its seats in the Lower House as well as its municipal councils’ membership. By Monday morning, 99.4% of the votes had been counted, meaning PJ will be able to form a provincial Constituent Convention.

Insfrán has been governor of Formosa since 1995 as the provincial office has no term limits. Despite the low voter turnout of 65.8%, the election constituted a new show of strength in the region.

The local opposition coalition Frente Amplio Formoseño — made up of mostly centrist and center-right parties — finished second, with around 20% of the vote in legislative and constituent convention elections. LLA followed in third, with approximately 11% in its first Formosa election. (LLA was launched in July 2021.) In fourth and last place was Movimiento Libres del Sur, which received 0.8% of the vote.

Ex-President Cristina Kirchner wrote in an X post on Sunday night that she spoke on the phone with Insfrán to congratulate him for “Peronism’s excellent result” in the elections.

Santa Fe

Santa Fe went to the polls on Sunday to elect officials in 365 municipalities. Nineteen voted for new mayors, 65 renewed half of their city councilors, while the rest voted on communal council seats.

Unidos para Cambiar Santa Fe, the coalition led by Governor Pullaro, won in 266 municipalities, according to the incumbent. This represents 72% of the districts that voted on Sunday.

Pullaro’s coalition nevertheless finished third in Rosario, the province’s most populous city, where it fought neck and neck with LLA. Ultimately, Justicialista ticket, led by Juan Monteverde, prevailed with 30.5% of the vote, while LLA, led by Juan Pedro Aleart, received 28.8%. Unidos finished third place with 25.6%.

Pullaro celebrated the day’s results calling them a “tremendous provincial triumph.”

“Over 80% of the people of Santa Fe will have local governments led by the ruling coalition,” Pullaro wrote on X on Sunday night, saying it was “no coincidence” and that there are “not many precedents of such continued growth” of a local coalition in the province.

The Santa Fe election was marked by a paltry turnout of just over 50%, the lowest since the return of democracy to Argentina in 1983. In his post, Pullaro said that politics “has to be up to the situation,” and it must offer “concrete results and not just words.”

In a speech after the Rosario results were released, Monteverde celebrated saying that “today, Rosario has beaten the mayor, the governor and the president.” Meanwhile, Presidential Secretary and national LLA leader Karina Milei highlighted that her party went from having “0 to 34 councilors” throughout the province while promising to “change the status quo and the country forever.”